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Off the Clock
RECOMMENDED: Off the Clock by Roni Loren is $1.99! I read this one and gave it a B+. Content warnings here for childhood trauma and suicide, which are the major ones I remember. Here’s what I thought:
When I first heard about Off the Clock, I was pretty excited. I’m all for erotic romances with smart people and it’s nice to see non-billionaires. So I went into the book amped for some nerdy people getting down and dirty, but was pleasantly surprised that it was so much more than that – it was emotional and showed an interesting portrayal of individuals dealing with all manner of trauma and mental illness.
Overtime has never felt so good…
Marin Rush loves studying sex. Doing it? That’s another story. In the research lab, Marin’s lack of practical knowledge didn’t matter, but now that she’s landed a job at The Grove, a high-end, experimental sex therapy institute, she can’t ignore the fact that the person most in need of sexual healing may be her.
Dr. Donovan West, her new hotshot colleague, couldn’t agree more. Donovan knows that Marin’s clients are going to eat her alive unless she gets some hands-on experience. And if she fails at the job, he can say goodbye to a promotion, so he assigns her a list of R-rated tasks to prepare her for the wild clientele of The Grove’s X-wing.
But some of those tasks are built for two, and when he finds Marin searching for a candidate to help her check off her list, Donovan decides there’s only one man for the job—him. As long as they keep their erotic, off-the-clock activities strictly confidential and without strings, no one will get fired—or worse, get attached…
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Him
Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy is 99c! This one has received an updated cover which…okay? It was also a huge favorite of commenters on the site when it first released. Have you read it?
They don’t play for the same team. Or do they?
Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.
Ryan Wesley’s biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he’ll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.
Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend…and a big one to learn about himself.
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Happily Ever Afters
Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant is $1.99! This is a contemporary YA title, with I believe a romantic subplot. It was featured in a previous Hide Your Wallet. This one has a cute meta element to it as the heroine loves romance novels and wants to write in the genre.
Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She’s rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. The only place she’s a true leading lady is in her own writing—in the swoony love stories she shares only with Caroline, her best friend and #1 devoted reader.
When Tessa is accepted into the creative writing program of a prestigious art school, she’s excited to finally let her stories shine. But when she goes to her first workshop, the words are just…gone. Fortunately, Caroline has a solution: Tessa just needs to find some inspiration in a real-life love story of her own. And she’s ready with a list of romance novel-inspired steps to a happily ever after. Nico, the brooding artist who looks like he walked out of one of Tessa’s stories, is cast as the perfect Prince Charming.
But as Tessa checks each item off Caroline’s list, she gets further and further away from herself. She risks losing everything she cares about—including the surprising bond she develops with sweet Sam, who lives across the street. She’s well on her way to having her own real-life love story, but is it the one she wants, after all?
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The Raven Tower
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie is $2.99! This is part of today’s Kindle Daily Deals and is being price-matched at select vendors. Leckie’s Ancillary Justice is a favorite with Carrie and SBTB commenters. Readers loved the Hamlet-inspired plot, but warn that the book contains first and second POV, which takes some getting used to.
Gods meddle in the fates of men, men play with the fates of gods, and a pretender must be cast down from the throne in this breathtaking first fantasy novel from Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards.
For centuries, the kingdom of Iraden has been protected by the god known as the Raven. He watches over his territory from atop a tower in the powerful port of Vastai. His will is enacted through the Raven’s Lease, a human ruler chosen by the god himself. His magic is sustained via the blood sacrifice that every Lease must offer. And under the Raven’s watch, the city flourishes.
But the power of the Raven is weakening. A usurper has claimed the throne. The kingdom borders are tested by invaders who long for the prosperity that Vastai boasts. And they have made their own alliances with other gods.
It is into this unrest that the warrior Eolo–aide to Mawat, the true Lease–arrives. And in seeking to help Mawat reclaim his city, Eolo discovers that the Raven’s Tower holds a secret. Its foundations conceal a dark history that has been waiting to reveal itself…and to set in motion a chain of events that could destroy Iraden forever.
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I can recommend Ivan Doig’s Last Bus to Wisdom which is on sale for $1.99 (for US Kindle readers). It was a fun read of a different time and place.
Sexually inexperienced female sex therapist seems like such a weird trope to me. Are there any books about sexually inexperience male sex therapists?
Him was actually controversial with SBTB readers when it came out. A lot of people loved it but there was a vocal minority (including me) that had serious problems with the portrayal of queer men. Two people reviewed it for the RITA Reader Challenge Reviews and one gave it a B+ and the other gave it an F.
I personally thought it was about a C. At the time, good bi rep in mm was pretty hard to find, so I did enjoy that bi rep. But there were other parts that made me uncomfortable and felt icky / fetishizing. You can read more of my thoughts in the comments of the F review. I haven’t re-read it and I don’t expect that it’d hold up for me if I did.
F review – https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/elle-kennedy-sarina-bowen-2/
B+ review – https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/elle-kennedy-sarina-bowen/
@Cleo: it was interesting to go back and read those contrasting reviews. (O/T: it was also interesting in the comments to see Santino Hassel lauded as a bi male writer of authentic m/m. Since Hassel was outed as a woman, they appear to have fallen down the Romancelandia oubliette.) Bowen is hit-or-miss for me for some of the reasons outlined in the F review, especially the subtext that queer people should be eternally grateful for even the slightest acknowledgment of their humanity. I almost had a rage stroke when, toward the end of Bowen’s ROOMMATE, one of the MCs (who has been homeless because his parents kicked him out for being gay) decides to do volunteer work at the homophobic church to which his parents belong. Up until that point, I had enjoyed the book and even thought it had a “best of the year” potential. When I got to that point, however, it was WTF?? to the nth power.
Second person narration is unusual, but IMO Leckie pulls it off. It’s best to be warned about it going in, because it is definitely something that takes getting used to. That said, I really enjoyed this book.
@DiscoDollyDeb – it was really interesting to re-read the reviews AND the comments (including the SH reference). It reminded me how much has changed w/r/t LGBTQIA+ rep in romance – and how bi rep in romance in particular has dramatically improved.
And maybe some people are still talking about women writing mm but those aren’t conversations I’m involved in. In fact, I’m no longer very involved in mm romance because queer romance has gotten so much better and more visible (I’m using queer romance here as an umbrella term for romances with LGBTQIA+ protagonists beyond cis gay mm pairings)
Warning: While Him is fun and compelling in many ways, it has significant problematic elements including a coach who outs one of the heroes without his permission (and the authors don’t seem to think this is a bad thing.) The portrayal of women in this series (it’s two books plus a novella) is not particularly pleasant.
I enjoyed Him (& Us – the second book). I can see the problems people had/have, but it was a good read for me. However, I’m struggling to remember any problematic women in it. In the first book I only remember Jamie’s girlfriend (he stays friends with her) and Westley’s mom (frankly both parents are horrible there). The second book I think just his Mom (delightful!) and sisters?
(was referring to Jamie’s mom in that last sentence!)
@June—there’s a reference in the F review that cleo linked above:
Treating bisexual people as peculiarly different in this regard is biphobic.
But instead of treating this carefully, it’s dealt with by…dissing women, of course. Here’s the pitch for choosing men over women (and it’s men over women, not Ryan over the rest of the world):
Bitches, amirite?
@fashionablyEvil yes, i get that. and that some things were problematic. I think I misunderstood Rhode red’s comment on “the portrayal of women” — that it was regarding specific women characters.
The problem with “Santino Hassell” wasn’t that she was a woman, it was that she went to extraordinary lengths to disguise that she was, including deputizing her husband to do an interview on the SB podcast! Bizarre. In another few decades, with hindsight, there’ll be a real interesting book to write about ideas of authenticity and fetishization in current m/m romance.
@Vasha – and that she and her husband apparently/ allegedly used the SH persona to manipulate their readers, including fundraising for a medical condition (cancer iirc) that neither of them had.